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Weekly column from the Non League Show's
Caroline Barker
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There was a sickening moment last year when a well
known celebrity died and the 24-hour rolling news networks
couldn’t make up their minds if he’d actually
left this mortal coil or not. Reason being, they reported
rumour before checking out the facts.
Popped onto the internet this morning and much the
same could be said for the Non League gossip machine.
One of the messageboards showed a hot topic relating
to the impending doom of a grassroots club, and a link
entitled “court case, latest news here.” Another
rattled on about “last night; what really happened
and how we’re doomed”. In both instances sources
close to the clubs were cited giving supposed credence
to information on insider dealings.
The age of the internet has made it such that we hear
about impending doom way before there’s even a
snifter of trouble, and what makes it even worse is
we hear rumours that may not even prove to be true.
There is many a tale to be told about the hype created
in a newsroom; I remember one journalist getting overly
animated over the arrest of a rock star, only to check
the facts and realise an ordinary joe like you or I
with the same name, and not a global megastar, had been
in fact arrested. Thank God the journalist did the right
thing and checked the facts first.
Ever since I whispered I might be interested in journalism
that was the first rule I hit.. check a story not once,
but twice and collaborate it with at least two reputable
sources. Thereby avoiding the moniker given to one such
news channel “never wrong for long”.
Now, as much as I like a good gossip, the issue with
the internet is that rumour is treated like fact, and
one version taken over another and that’s what
worries me.
If I believed everything I read on the net, then my
non league team would currently be experiencing everything
from staring into the abyss or on the flip side, spending
as much as Chelsea on the first team squad!
Once again this week a manager at a Non League side
has banned his players from looking at the web for fear
of demotivating them, and I wonder if we should do the
same with the fans?
I’ll be first to start it; this weekend, rather
then morphing into a stuttering cybergeek, shrivelling
everytime another bit of worrying news is posted, I’m
going to ignore everything I read on the messageboards
negative and positive and spend the added time doing
something like finding a cure for the common cold.
You never know, this time next week I may have earned
myself a Nobel Peace prize, or on the other hand saved
a lot of pain and heartache over something which was
just simply not true.
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